Information about 2 Anti-Immigrant Bills Introduced in the Wisconsin State Legislature

SB 533 – a bill to block local control and local IDs, co-sponsored by Rep. Sanfelippo (Republican – West Allis) and Sen. Wanggaard (Republican – Racine and Kenosha Co.). – A bill to prevent the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County from creating local ID cards.

This bill would:

Prevent counties throughout Wisconsin from issuing local identification cards to people who cannot obtain Wisconsin state ID. The law targets a new local ID card program in Milwaukee.

Our analysis:

This bill is an escalated attack on local control that not only impacts Milwaukee but threatens other counties throughout the state. For the first time, the state is dictating to counties what they can and cannot do with their own resources, regardless of the needs of the local community.

This bill is a bigoted attack on immigrants, transgender people, the homeless, seniors, formerly incarcerated people and the thousands of low income people in Milwaukee and throughout the state who cannot access Wisconsin state ID.

With Milwaukee IDs, vulnerable people will:

Be able to identify themselves to police when stopped or when they need to report crimes, making everyone safer

Be able to identify themselves to homeless shelters, healthcare providers, and other institutions.

Be able to open a bank account and cash checks.

Domestic violence survivors will be able to file papers in court to protect themselves and their children.

Have access to local services they pay taxes to provide, like city recycling centers.

Enter public schools to meet their children’s teachers.

Transgender people will have an ID that agrees with their identity.

The ID cannot be used as identification for voting or to access social safety net programs.

Loudly and publicly increase collaboration between police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to deport community members.

Require police to collaborate with ICE to the maximum extent possible.

Sow fear of police in immigrant communities and sow confusion among police as to their role in enforcing immigration laws.

Our analysis:

Because it would lead to increased collaboration between ICE and police, the bill would make undocumented victims of crime, domestic violence survivors, and their loved ones afraid to contact the police. We are all less safe when thousands of community members are afraid to report crimes.

The bill encourages racial profiling and aims to turn every local police officer, courthouse clerk, and city worker into an ICE agent.

We need to advance policies that build trust between communities of color and the police. We need to completely separate local law enforcement from ICE. The job of local police is to keep us safe, not deport community members.

This type of policy has been discredited. Hundreds of cities and states nationwide have passed laws limiting or ending collaboration between ICE and local police. This wave of opposition led to the November 2014 directive from President Obama limiting the circumstances in which police can detain people for ICE. AB 450 takes us backward.